A mediaevalist trying to be a philosopher and a philosopher trying to be a mediaevalist write about theology, philosophy, scholarship, books, the middle ages, and especially the life, times, and thought of the Doctor Subtilis, the Blessed John Duns Scotus.

Thursday, January 1, 2009

Scotistic Censorship

The following is a segment that I noticed was dropped from two manuscripts (Wien 1494 and Paris 3490) of Peter Thomae's Quaestiones de esse intelligibili, q.4 a.3. In this passage Peter criticizes Scotus and says that he contradicted himself. I submit that this is an act of censorship. It does not constitute an homoeoteleuton but is a simple omission. After the omitted passage, the text continues with the words "Ideo tenendo eandem conclusionem cum ipso". A few paragraphs later, there is another omission by the same two manuscripts of the words "in quo contradico isti Doctori". Apparently, some Scotists don't like the master being criticized and suppress text that does. Here is the lenghty section of omitted text: